


O' These Chilled Bones Do Call, A Ficlet

by Simply8Steps



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Kind of Gen though, New Caprica, Romance, canon-typical angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 14:02:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11186625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Simply8Steps/pseuds/Simply8Steps
Summary: Different forms of hauntings - in sorrow and comfort.





	O' These Chilled Bones Do Call, A Ficlet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [larsfarm77](https://archiveofourown.org/users/larsfarm77/gifts).



> A short one written for larsfarm77 on LJ for the AR Comm's Holiday Gift Exchange. This was originally posted 12/27/2012 for the request of: "I'm a total sucker for New Caprica or post New Caprica, angst, hurt/comfort and sex. Anything involving one or more of these themes would be awesome."
> 
> Original Note: I think I got angst and NC, so... hopefully. LOL, and hopefully, it makes some semblance of sense. I am so out of... it.

Sometimes the ghosts that haunt her no longer have physical bodies (her father and sisters, her mother… Richard), but it feels like their spirits still lie on her body, a weight heavy and full of regrets and memories. It’s a chilling warmth that settles into the very marrow of her bones. Nourishing. Devouring. Like cancer and prophecy.   
  
After the end of the worlds, the weight changed to those of living bodies (and dead bodies with no burial or cremation awaiting them). She translates it into numbers (for what do we do with our own bodies), counts them daily, and for once, this is a weight she carries, perhaps not gladly, but with joy (as her sister did pound by pound – alternating “Am I getting fat?” with “I can’t believe there’s a little life inside of me!”). She transfers some to slips of papers - by name and nameless numbers. She has few regrets but an abundance of memorials lining the walls of her mind. (It’s a different weight than those old spirits. These cries sound too loudly in the present, not far into the past.)   
  
Sometimes, it feels as if she might drown.  
  


* * *

  
On New Caprica, the chill settles deep into her bones and refuses to leave. (Detention does not help as grey concrete digs against too thin limbs with little to insulate.) When she finally exits, her joints and teeth rattle. It reminds her of the old tales, of the old bone-dancers, the priests and priestesses waving their skeleton wards.   
  
Protection, a sound to scare off death itself.   
  
Ironic.  
  
She rubs her hands in an attempt to warm them, eyes closing. A woman passing by grabs them, and her eyes snap open. Underneath her breath, the woman is whispering a prayer. She doesn’t have the heart to stop her, to scream in fear at what this has all become, to complain that her joints ache with a cold that even faith in humanity (even less so the gods) offers no relief from. Instead she stands silent and still and allows the woman her prayer, bends her head, draws her eyes downward, closing them. Passersby will see this image, and it embeds into their minds and hearts as hope. The woman whispers her thanks as she lets go and runs off.  
  
She stands still, head still bent and hair covering her face from view. Tears fall from her closed eyes, and all in her mind is silence.  
  
There were times when the weight of skeletons fell the bone dancers mid-dance. Solitary dancers learned to travel light.  
  


* * *

  
She returns to Bill like a corporeal ghost, her face wane and her body fragile, even if her eyes burn with life. She smiles quietly and thanks him softly before letting herself out of his quarters on her first visit. She never places her hands anywhere within reach.  
  
On the next visit, Bill is the one who drops by on Colonial One. She looks better, as if free of some illness (had she been sick?), and her smile seems genuine if tired. “Bill, what can I do for you?”  
  
The question catches him off guard, and he’s confused, because the question sounds wrong, but he cannot sense how. “I just wanted to visit an old friend.” His smile is soft, slightly hesitant.  
  
She barks out a laugh that is almost wet, but her eyes are dry when she looks at him, “Old might be the word for it.” She hesitates, but then reaches out a hand.  
  
He is still slightly off-balance he finds, but his smile is gentle when he reaches back to grasp her hand in his own. It’s the first time, he realizes, that they’ve touched since New Caprica, since the exodus, and he feels the coldness in the pale skin, and the protrusion of her knuckles underneath the taut, slightly chapped skin. “Well, perhaps, eternal friends should be more proper then?”  
  
Her smile fades as her eyes are seemingly drawn downwards by some unseen force. There’s a broken rasp underlying her voice when she answers, “Nothing is eternal.”  
  
Bill doesn’t know what to do except to squeeze her hand - once, twice. Like an imitation heart beat.  
  
“Laura…”  
  
And she thinks, perhaps there are some ghosts that can be brought back to life – that flickering warmth that haunts at the edges of the soul, trying to approach.  
  


  
_Fin._


End file.
